Research Projects | The School of Biological Sciences

Research Projects

Our students engage in research throughout their programmes but for many, their final year projects are the 'jewel in the crown'.

Marius Wenzel

Marius's Honours project, Patterns of dispersal and genetic structure of European populations of the Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), was conducted with Stuart Piertney.

Marius's project focussed on developing and utilising a suite of DNA-markers to assess levels of genetic divergence among European populations of chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). Many populations of chough are in decline, and there is a need to understand better whether populations are isolated and as such require individual management and conservation plans to ensure their long term viability.

His project combined fieldwork to sample the isolated populations on islands off the west coast of Scotland with in-depth laboratory-based genetic screening and analysis. The work is an excellent example of conservation genetics in action, combining state-of-the-art molecular techniques to inform ecology and conservation. The findings of the project have been incorporated into larger-scale studies aimed at conserving choughs and managing their environment.

Siti Awg Taib

Siti Awg Taib sampled the tree flora of lowland tropical rain forest in Brunei Darussalam to detect species of Al hyper-accumulators.

This trait is rarely found in plants growing in temperate environments, but it is common among trees in tropical forests growing on acid, nutrient-poor soils. Working alongside our research partners at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Siti employed tree climbers to access leaves from the top of 40 m-tall tropical trees and then processed the samples in a laboratory at UBD for chemical analysis in Aberdeen.

Her data will be added to our global data-set on leaf Al concentrations to provide additional information on the phylogenetic distribution of the Al hyper-accumulator trait, which will be deployed to shed light on the processes underlying its evolution and ecological function.

Isaac Black

Isaac worked on the effects of vitamin E and L-theanine on longevity and fecundity in Yellow Fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti).

Longer-lived mosquitoes are more likely to carry disease, therefore shortening the lifespan of mosquitoes in the wild is desirable. Conversely, captive bred, sterile mosquitoes, which can be released to outcompete disease-carrying wild mosquitoes often die more quickly than well-adapted wild mosquitoes and so extending their lifespan is desirable. Zac found that vitamin E had a dose-dependent effect on the survivorship of Yellow Fever mosquitoes, extending the mosquito lifespan in most cases.

The laboratory techniques Zac developed during his honours project helped him gain a PhD scholarship, carrying out research into controlling Yellow Fever mosquitoes at Oxitec, a company based within Oxford University that uses cutting-edge technology to defeat disease vectors.